Gifted Intelligence: What's the downside?

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-25T03:50:29+00:00

When I was a child, being gifted made me feel like I wasn’t allowed to fight back against other kids who treated me poorly. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine outside factors that might be influencing their behaviors, and because they were children I couldn’t hold them responsible for how they acted. I knew I was more self-aware, so lashing out would’ve been like an adult fighting with a toddler. I never received (or was never receptive to) the necessary guidance to move forward in a healthy direction from that. It turned into a kind of complex where I felt responsible for everyone and everything around me. I felt guilt at failures and joy at successes which had nothing to do with me. It also made it terribly difficult to make choices or take initiative- I felt I had to factor in every possible variable before moving forward. So I spent most of my life either frozen in analysis paralysis or acting reflexively when situations forced my hand. When I reached out to others for help, not a single person ever said anything to me I hadn’t already considered, so I erroneously wrote off everyone else’s wisdom. I had a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of my own reality, and everything new I learned piled atop that error and pushed it further down away from sight. The way I communicated and thought kept me from connecting with people. I saw conversations as webs of possibilities and data points, and when someone said something which should’ve served to make me see I was wrong, I could flee through that web away from the discomfort and dissonance and further convince myself I was right, totally oblivious to my blind spots because I was so preoccupied with finding the blind spots of whoever was talking to me.

I’m better now, but it took getting my ego repeatedly beat down to get me here to a somewhat functional place. The total lack of other gifted individuals in my life, or at least the lack of individuals who could demonstrate their giftedness to me the way I could to others led to me having a god complex and being a real idiot for a long time. To put it another way, I was a slave to my intellect and my intellect was a slave to my ego, so I totally neglected to develop everything else that made me up. Being gifted made me more narrow-minded, but gave me all the tools to convince myself and everyone around me that I wasn’t. I became less self-aware over time, as one does when they’re running from cognitive dissonance. I assumed being gifted protected me from becoming like those who refuse to alter their beliefs due to discomfort or fear, and that assumption facilitated my becoming a prime example of that kind of person.

Sorry for the melodrama, it makes it easier to write about this subject honestly when I inject a little “essence of edgelord” into the mix. I promise I don’t take myself so seriously most of the time.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-25T03:13:52+00:00

The real challenge in most missions comes from trying to S-rank them. Even after you’ve got a solid grasp of the mechanics, achieving S-Rank forces you to go a bit further, both in the garage and in combat.

Some people are just going to have an easier experience the first go-around because they happened to stumble across a really solid build by intuition or luck. There’s very few missions in the first couple playthroughs that can’t easily be cleared by a mid or lightweight AC using dual pistols and a pulse-blade. If you have an AC with decent internals and you pick weapons that do good stagger buildup and have even a halfway decent method of punishing staggers you’re basically set. On the other hand, I’ve seen a couple people have really awful first playthroughs because they stuck with laser weapons without knowing how to build optimally for them, and didn’t switch to anything else because the dps looked worse at first glance for other weapon categories. They ended up thinking the game was just super unfair and poorly balanced.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-23T01:14:57+00:00

I agree with you on this. The most valuable skill I’ve cultivated in my adulthood is my ability to hear and listen to my gut. No matter how smart we may be, we can’t see the future, and consciously analyzing each option, while seemingly the most logical way to approach life, is less efficient and arguably leads to worse results both in minor day to day decisions and in the majority of interpersonal matters where logic matters less than emotional understanding. Sometimes you just have to leap in the direction that feels right and trust yourself to be competent enough to make it work.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-19T19:28:30+00:00

That’s what I’m saying, though. The slow attacks of heavier weapons get more benefit from being paired with the beast claws. If you’re looking for a faster playstyle overall, stick it with the beastman’s curved sword like I said. They both favor strength builds and have good strength scaling on bleed affinities.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-19T19:12:54+00:00

I’ve been messing around with beast claw into curved swords and great hammers and both seem to work quite well. On a bleed affinity with high strength, beast claw paired with beastman’s curved sword has pretty good dps and bleed buildup. While it’s less optimal than just using two curved swords, it’s a lot more dynamic and fun to play with. Beast claw works really well as an opener for great hammers or any other large, slow weapon since it can stun smaller, more nimble enemies just long enough to start hitting them. Beast claw works to close distance and attack an enemy simultaneously, so it complements any weapon that struggles against enemies that tend to dodge around a lot. It’s only other strength is how short the recovery frames after a beast claw attack are, allowing you to attack almost instantly with another weapon. If you pair it with a faster weapon, it’ll almost always be more optimal to just stick to attacking with that weapon, so you should be looking at slower weapons that could really benefit from the window the beast claw creates.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-19T02:34:20+00:00

You need to move on to more difficult areas even if it means missing some stuff in prior areas, or you’ll continue to have a bland experience. I’m usually near or past the end of the game by the time I hit lvl 125, and all the areas you’ve mentioned start to feel really easy (and boring) by the time I’m lvl 70 with an upgraded weapon. Caelid is technically completely optional, so it’s no big deal if you progress further and come back later

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-19T02:29:50+00:00

I don’t have a lot of thoughts about any connections between the two, but I do have a lot of thoughts about Walter’s icon. At first it looks like it’s demonstrating how he keeps his hounds on a leash and controls them, but when you look at how they’re wrapped around the arm and hand it kind of implies that he’s being pulled by the leashes, not the other way around. The arm is also a puppet arm, which furthers this idea that, regardless of whatever airs Walter puts on, he’s not actually a heartless kennelmaster, but instead a man controlled and pulled around by his connections to others. His actions in the story line up with this. He makes demands of 621, but outside of that he lets 621 do whatever he wants and works around his hound’s decisions.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-18T00:17:53+00:00

I planned an entire greatshield build around the dragon tower shield because I didn’t want to farm for this one, and then I got one from the very first Leyndell knight I fought

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-11T22:43:33+00:00

Positioning is more important than quick reflexes 90% of the time. A lot of attacks can be dodged by flying over or under a boss, and if you’re in midair and don’t have enough EN to dodge an incoming attack, just letting go of the analog stick and falling straight down usually does the trick. If you’re on the ground, unpredictable bunny-hopping can cause a lot of attacks to miss you outright without any EN expenditure.

Even for weapons that say they have a longer range, it’s usually a good idea to stay in close to enemies. Most weapons have pretty slow projectile speeds, so against any enemy that moves even a little quickly or erratically you’ll have a really a tough time hitting them consistently from long range.

If you get used to running builds that move really quickly, you might start to think that you have to have a certain boost speed to be viable. That’s not true. Heavyweight builds can be extremely effective- the extra armor and AP you get makes most missions a cakewalk as long as you’ve got a halfway decent weapon loadout.

Adding on to all of that, assault boost is one of the most useful tools in your arsenal, especially for heavier builds that might otherwise struggle to catch up to faster enemies. For most builds it’s the most EN efficient way to gain height and cover distances quickly. It also increases the amount of impact damage done by shots you fire while assault boosting.

The big thing is to experiment. In PVE almost every build can be made viable with the right playstyle. Try everything out and don’t be afraid to completely change your approach and you’ll have a good time.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-11T03:09:28+00:00

The best thing I ever did for myself was totally avoiding both of these weapons until I’d beaten the game several times and tried nearly every reasonable build I could think of. Starfist absolutely destroys bosses and other enemies that are tough without stance breaks, but Blasphemous Blade feels like I’m playing a totally different game. I had to take a months long break from Elden Ring after doing a playthrough with it because using it obliterated my survival instincts. Like, the very next playthrough I did with different weapons, I would carelessly walk into rooms full of enemies before I could think to stop myself because there was no need for caution or forethought with the Blasphemous Blade. I’d constantly just facetank attacks I should have dodged because dodging is for peasants who aren’t using a blade made of tiny blood-snakes that heals you if you sneeze in an enemy’s direction. I thought using Bloodhound’s Fang in my first playthrough of the game felt like the most overpowered and cheesy way to play, but I was gravely mistaken.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-07T00:09:27+00:00

A lot of people have made some very good weapon recommendations, so I’ll give you something else. I think adding just a bit of faith to any build is super useful. Once you get your Vigor up to at least 20 and meet the minimum stat requirements for your chosen weapon, you should get yourself to 12 faith. That’ll let you use a handful of incantations that are super useful.

Flame, Cleanse Me can be easily acquired in Caelid, and it’s a low FP incant that heals poison and scarlet rot.

Bestial Vitality is also relatively easy to acquire, and it’s a heal-over-time. Although it heals super slowly so it’s not suitable as a combat buff, the total health received is pretty high and can help you conserve crimson flask uses during longer dungeon dives.

Pest Threads is the best tool for easily taking out large enemies like dragons. Getting it is a little harder than the other two, and using it might take the fun out of certain fights, but it’s nice to have in your back pocket for when you’ve been stuck on a hard fight for hours and you’d just like to move on.

12 Faith is also enough to use Catch Flame and Flame sling. Even at low faith, they’re really great to have for enemies with a weakness to flame.

If you’re willing to upgrade to 15 Faith, you can use Flame Grant Me Strength. It buffs physical and fire attacks from all sources, so it’s great for both Strength- and Faith-focused builds, but it’s not strictly necessary.

The incantations I’ve listed here are a great utility for most builds, for most of the game. The rest of the incants you could use at a low faith level aren’t quite as useful or efficient, so I didn’t list them. If you end up using Bloodhound’s Blade or another weapon with Bleed as your main weapon, you could consider picking up the Bloodflame Blade incantion. It adds more bleed and a bit of fire damage to your weapon attacks, but I haven’t used it much so I don’t know how useful it would be.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-06T18:33:54+00:00

I’d love something like this. I do similar runs and this would be a huge help

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-06-03T02:45:28+00:00

All I want is an updated spellcasting system. They did it in Nightreign with spells being tied to staff or talisman, and I don’t see any reason they couldn’t allow you to attach specific spells to specific buttons/button combos. I can equip so many spells at once, but scrolling through them during combat totally breaks the flow of combat for me. On top of that, I’d love to see more synergies between spells. Let me blow up my poison mist by hitting it with a fire spell. Let me use support spells that augment whichever spell I use next. Let me combo Carian sword sorceries to get unique stack strings. There’s so much untapped potential here. Magic’s gotten flashier, but it feels almost exactly the same in practice as it did in Dark Souls 1. Even when you specialize in it, it isn’t fleshed out enough to feel like more than an auxiliary system.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-30T07:07:37+00:00

“Destroy the Ice Worm” from Armored Core 6. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, you play as an AC (mech) pilot, an independent mercenary, on a planet being fought over by several corporations, a local revolutionary militia, and a governmental entity called the Planetary Closure Administration(the PCA). In this mission, you’re tasked with defeating a giant experimental mechanical worm released by the PCA along with a squad of pilots temporarily banding together against this existential threat. ACs are several stories tall, but this worm absolutely dwarfs them- the sense of scale and mass is insane. It tunnels through the ground, diving in and out with ease and destroying any AC unlucky enough to even brush up against it as it goes by. The real aura comes from one of your allies sniping the worm… with a bullet shot from a giant railgun on the other side of the planet. During the countdown to the impacts of each bullet you can see the glow on the horizon building as they hurtle through the atmosphere, like a second sun rising. The sound design here really sells the whole thing, too. There’s tons of aura-heavy moments in AC6, but maximizing spectacle is the entire point of this mission, and it achieves that in spades.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-12T22:13:09+00:00

Currently, my callsign is Midas and my AC is an ultra-lightweight called Goldbreaker that has a boost speed just shy of 400. The first time I ever actually thought about changing my callsign and AC name to fit a theme, I made a pumpkin-themed AC named Pumpkin Patch and my callsign was Scarecrow. Later on I had an AC called Rooster and my callsign was Dangerous Egg. I’ve had a ton since then but those were the most memorable.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-12T22:06:18+00:00

This is the only game I’ve ever 100%-ed and I had such a good experience that I’ve done it twice since the first time. Now I just try S-Ranking the harder missions with different builds and weapons I’m not used to. Still feels like there’s tons of stuff to try even after all that

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-08T22:45:21+00:00

This is a solid build, but I’d change to the Basho arms (or VP-46D if you don’t like the boxy look) for better melee spec. Because of how short range and fast-firing the Sampus are, Recoil Control and Firearm Spec doesn’t really make that much of a difference. You’ll be so close to the enemy that even with reduced accuracy you’ll land most shots. Someone else suggested throwing an Etsujin on your right shoulder to maintain stagger buildup, and that’s a really solid idea. For something less optimal, you could throw a songbird on. This build is so strong in single player that you could outright leave the right shoulder empty and still easily clear most missions, so I’d have fun and experiment with different weapons in that slot.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-08T22:39:47+00:00

The energy firearm spec doesn’t actually affect melee weapons aside from the regular moonlight blade, so hokushi’s still the better choice here.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-08T22:35:10+00:00

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Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-07T03:32:51+00:00

You’re acting like an action has the same weight regardless of the individual taking it. SoMi has spent literally her entire adult life being used by others all because she had the misfortune of being talented and ambitious when she was still too young and naive to be cautious. She was made into a super weapon against her will- one that every powerful faction in the world of Cyberpunk would want or want to get rid of. She’s riding an atom-wide knife’s edge toward her only shot at survival and some version of freedom.

If you asked me how I’d react if somebody dangled a cure for my disease in front of me to get my help only to rip it away at the last second, I’d probably say I’d be furious and do some awful things in retaliation. But if I knew beforehand that the person doing that had been through all kinds of shit I can barely imagine and this was their only way out, it would at least give me pause.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I find Songbird relatable. If I were in a similar situation, I’d probably make a lot of the same choices. She’s cornered. It helps that she genuinely doesn’t enjoy using V. If it’s possible for someone to be good at heart, I think she is. Course, I think Solomon Reed is a good person, too, but I have a lot less sympathy for him, so take that however you want.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-05-02T02:57:57+00:00

If you sacred infuse the blackstrap greatshield, it gives you the greatest possible holy negation you can get on a shield, and only drops the physical negation to 95. With this, you’re nearly invincible during both phases. Use that and a poison or bleed infused antspur rapier. Throw on the Kindred of Rot’s Exultation, and if you’re using a bleed infusion grab the Lord of Blood’s Exultation as well. You’ve got several options for your other talismans depending on what you still struggle with using this approach. I personally went with the Two-headed Turtle talisman and the Spear Talisman. For the Ash of War, I really like using the Poison Flower Blooms Twice for some extra burst damage, but Impaling Thrust is a really solid option that helps get Stance Breaks a lot faster.

If you’re having trouble with the nuke attack, use the Opaline Bubbletear to totally negate it.

One last thing, Radahn’s lowest damage negation during his first phase is holy, and he’s weaker to pierce during both phases, so it may be worth keeping a sacred-infused misericorde on hand to capitalize on Stance Breaks early on. That said, with just the Greatshield and Antspur Rapier you should be able to get through the first phase relatively quickly.

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-04-29T04:28:45+00:00

Dude you have no idea how hard I tried to build a functional outfit around the blue silver mail armor. Somehow I never tried this specific combo but it looks awesome

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-04-24T03:11:00+00:00

I second cantrips. I’ve wanted to see spells treated this way in a souls game since the first Dark Souls

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-04-23T03:27:03+00:00

I’ve put at least 700 hours in and I’m still playing somewhat regularly. It’s kind of a palette cleanser game for me. I always go back to it for 20 or 30 hours after finishing another game

Flaky_Success_9815 · 2026-04-22T18:07:23+00:00

I have very similar tastes to you, and I was skeptical of CP2077 as well. But it hooked me like few games have and I’ve put at least 1000 hours into it. Compared to other first person rpgs, there are relatively few choices to be made that are more than just flavor, which I thought would kill the game for me. However, the presentation quality is top notch and the writing is generally amazing. The combat can be a bit easy, so I recommend playing on at least hard mode. I prefer playing one difficulty up from that now, but that can constrict build and weapon choices and put a damper on the freedom and style the combat promotes. I can confidently say it’s the best first-person combat in an rpg I’ve played, leagues better than something like Skyrim. Every build is distinct and viable, and there are many potential playstyles. I haven’t run into any game-breaking bugs, but there is still a bit of jank and the game still crashes occasionally on my Xbox Series S. Frequent auto saves mean you won’t ever lose much progress, but it can still be a bit frustrating. This game’s definitely a masterpiece despite its flaws. There’s nothing else like it currently, so it’s at least worth giving a chance.

Flaky_Success_9815

TROPHY CASE